Lesson Six——How to learn speaking

Language is a culture, so-called culture, is feasible in one place, but often does not work in another place, if you don't realize others culture you will cause trouble everywhere. In language, not only different places have different words, there styles of handling there words are not the same also. When peaking in English the concept of "everyone" have to say "everybody", but by French they talk about "tout le monde", the literal translation is "the whole world". In English we say "Never mind!" But in German the same idea have to be said as "Das macht nichts!" literally "that make nothing." The concept to express is the same, but the way of expression are is different. If translate "Let's call it a day" by way of word by word in Chinese it would be ridiculous.

Thus, you may understand that the first step to mastering conversation is not to say what you think, just imitate other people's style of speaking. Here I give it a term as "Capacity of Imitation".

Although you known how people speak, but there are too many things to express, sometimes think of the meaning, but do not remember how to say in foreign language, this is because your vocabulary is not enough. Don't need to familiar with every word in the entire dictionary, but it is necessary to familiar with words that have a high probability to be mentioned. Therefore, at first we need to know which word is often used, that is to say, should be adequately prepared. If someone asked you what is your astrological sign and Chinese zodiac, you may find that you have never learned these words before, but in fact you usually talk about this in your mother tong every day.

About to what extend you have accumulated you vocabulary, usually we call that word power, but here I give it a new term: "Capacity of Vocabulary".

Although prepare is important, it doesn't guarantee you will beyond all trouble. Even you are well prepared usually, sometimes something unexpected will come suddenly, so called accident happen everyday. No matter how hard we try such things are unavoidable, we can only depend on our flexibility to get rid of difficulty. These flexibility can be developed by training.  In language this means use skillfully what you have learned. When you can not remember the word "Ambulance", you have to be able to say "the vehicle which send you to hospital". This is not a model answer, completely depended on you imagination, whether your counter part understand you is depends on your skill.

In language, to what extend your flexibility is, I call it as "Capacity of Expression".

"Capacity of Imitation", "Capacity of Vocabulary" and "Capacity of Expression" is the Iron Triangle of Speaking. In order to train this abilities, there are three different training method.

1. Training the "Capacity of Imitation" - Firstly make sure you have adequate ability for  reading and listening, then looking for a suitable passage of recording, listen repeatedly, not too long, maximum to 10 minutes will be enough. The content must suit your  interests, otherwise it will be very difficult to concentrate. According to a statistics, if a message listen repeatably to more than thirty times, you will be very easy to imitate. Like a baby learning to speak, at the beginning it do not know anything, just kept constantly listening for a long time, as time goes by it imitate it unconsciously.

Although your have to be concentrated, but don't mind nervously to every word and every sentence, on the contrary, allow yourself to relax and let the sound flow through your ear naturally. Relax more, the progress will be faster. Once relaxed, the voice will enter your subconscious like hypnosis, unconsciously, you spontaneously imitate them, because you have been Imperceptibly influenced.

Do not be surprised, you mother tong is precisely picked up with this method.

2. Training the "Capacity of Vocabulary" - To enrich your glossary, there are two ways to practise, which to choose depends on personal preference. One of them is at first a dictionary should be stand by, pay attention to the things around you, or conversation of people closed to you. Then ask yourself how to say these things in foreign languages, check the dictionary if you does not know. look up how to say bowl when you encounter bowl, look up how to say plat when you encounter plat, what you have checked would become particularly impressive to you. Another way is to turn on the radio, select a channel of your native language,  do the real time translation while listening, check out with dictionary if some words you don't know, its purpose is the same as the former.

But a point have to be indicated, you can not use this method to learn the vocabulary that you have not learned before, because after you have checked the dictionary, you just know how to say in foreign language of a thing, but there haven't any connection between the meaning and the word, therefore you are unable to memorize it. You would merely recite it with much effort and ineffectively. If you want to realize how to memorize words, refer to my another article "How to Mastering Vocabulary", which will be described in detail.

The purpose of this exercise of instantly look up to dictionary is to brush up the glossary you already have. Its role is to test your conditioned reflex, to see whether once you thought of an idea you can immediately connect it to the word reverent. The word is already in your memory, but you are unable to draw the specified word out immediately.

The capacity of vocabulary mentioned here is to referred to herein whether you can draw out the memory which exists already in your brain.

3. Training the "Capacity of Expression" - When you have a radio in hand, turn it to the channel of your native language, television is OK, but radio can be listen while walking, but don't do that while driving, you will be distracted most often. While you are listening do the real time translation, translate to the language which  you are studying. 

It seem to be very similar to the exercise to training the "Capacity of Vocabulary", the difference is, you can not use a dictionary. Even a dictionary is in your hand, you have to withhold. Try to translate by your own way, do your best, don't pushing yourself too hard. Of course, you will encounter words you don't know, this is the occasion for using this method. The purpose of this training is to let you be flexible, in case you don't know how to express an idea in French when you are speaking French, you have to use other terms you are familiar with to remedy your expression.

Take English as an example, which is  easier to understand. I would say some simple words to explain, for spare much description. Assume that you want to say "ambulance" in English, but you do not know the word "ambulance", you can modify you words, to say "the vehicle which send people to hospital", if you don't know even "hospital", then you may say "the vehicle used for emergency rescue", if you don't know even "rescue", then say "vehicle for transporting wounded people", what about if you even don't know "vehicle"? Just say "something that transporting someone wounded". Don't know "Wounded" also? No problem, simply with a sentence as "something that transporting someone in accident" will solve your problem. After all, the purpose is in order to made yourself understandable.

This training can also bring you two bonus! Firstly, you expression ability would be strengthen, you are bolder to speak foreign language whenever faced with foreigners. Secondly, if you have cultivated this ability, when you learn other foreign language you can also make use of it, no matter what language you speak you are using the same principle. Like playing acrobatics, after you have trained to throwing torches, to change to throwing knifes can be pick up soon.

If you have read my previous article "How to learn to Listen", you must have guessed what I'm going to say. Right, three trainings are separated to different stages, initially, train the Capacity of Imitation, after you have an ideal result then start to train the Capacity of Vocabulary, when you have come to certain level, then begin to train the Capacity of Expression. If you have mastered this Three Iron Triangle of the Speaking, congratulations, you are going to buy champagne now!